Pioneering politician dies at 75

Sunday

Geraldine Ferraro, 75, the first for a woman on a major party ticket, died Saturday in Boston, where she was being treated for complications of blood cancer.

Geraldine Ferraro was a relatively obscure congresswoman from the New York City borough of Queens in 1984 when she was tapped by Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale to join his ticket.

Her vice presidential bid, the first for a woman on a major party ticket, emboldened women across the country to seek public office and helped lay the groundwork for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential candidacy in 2008 and John McCain’s choice of his running mate, Sarah Palin, that year.

Ferraro, 75, died Saturday in Boston, where she was being treated for complications of blood cancer.

Women politicians in Eastern Connecticut said Ferraro was a groundbreaker who expanded the possibilities for them.

“That was definitely a big moment, to have a woman run on a presidential ticket. It was a big deal, very exciting,” said state Rep. Betsy Ritter, D-Waterford. “She was first, but for a lot of us who had paid attention for a while, it was like, ‘Yes, our time has come.’

“The pressures she had to deal with in the national limelight were difficult,” Ritter, 58, said. “Clearly there were people gunning for her because she was a woman doing that, so there was a lot of pressure to do well, and I think that made it harder for her.”

State Rep. Mae Flexer, D- Killingly, at 30, is too young to remember Ferraro’s vice presidential bid, but she praised her for leading the way.

“Geraldine Ferraro was part of a group of women leaders who showed women of my generation that there wasn’t anything women couldn’t do,” Flexer said. “I was 4 years old when she was running for vice president, so it wasn’t a foreign concept for me that women could run for national office — vice president or president.”

Outspoken

Norwich City Council member Jacqueline Caron credited Ferraro with paving the way for women interested in higher office.

“I didn’t always agree with what she said, but she always had the courage to say it,” Caron, 50, said. “She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, or take on tough challenges — and you shouldn’t be.”

When Mondale’s chose her as his running mate, the blunt, feisty Ferraro charmed audiences initially, and for a time polls showed the Democratic ticket gaining ground on
President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush. But her candidacy ultimately proved rocky as she fought ethics charges and traded barbs with Bush over accusations of sexism and class warfare.

Ferraro later told an interviewer, “I don’t think I’d run again for vice president,” then added “Next time I’d run for president.”

Reagan won 49 of 50 states in 1984, the largest landslide since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first re-election over Alf Landon in 1936. But Ferraro had forever sealed her place as trailblazer for women in politics.

Breakthrough

“At the time it happened it was such a phenomenal breakthrough,” said Ruth Mandel of the Center on the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University. “She stepped on the path to higher office before anyone else, and her footprint is still on that path.”

Palin, who was Alaska’s governor when she ran for vice president, often spoke of Ferraro on the campaign trail.

“She broke one huge barrier and then went on to break many more,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page Saturday. “May her example of hard work and dedication to America continue to inspire all women.”

Mondale remembered his former running mate as “a remarkable woman and a dear human being.”

Died in Mass. hospital

Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had gone Monday for a procedure to relieve back pain caused by a fracture, but then developed pneumonia.
In a statement, President Barack Obama praised Ferraro as a trailblazer who had made the world better for his daughters.

“Sasha and Malia will grow up in a more equal America because of the life Geraldine Ferraro chose to live,” Obama said.

Bulletin reporter Alison Shea contributed to this report.

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